Spectroscopy of Charged Donors and Many-Electron Effects in Semiconductor Quantum Wells

Abstract

Far infrared magnetospectroscopic studies of negative donor ions (D — ), and donors in the presence of many excess electrons in high magnetic fields in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells are reviewed. Both singlet and triplet transitions of well-center D -ions were observed and are in good agreement with recent theoretical calculations. For off-well-center D -ions evidence for a predicted magnetic-field-induced unbinding of the second electron was found. In the presence of many excess electrons the D --singlet and -triplet transitions are blue-shifted substantially and evolve into bound magnetoplasmon excitations. Cusps are observed at integral and fractional Landau-level filling factors (v) in a plot of normalized blue-shift of the D -singlet-like bound magnetoplasmon transition vs. v. For v < 1, the singlet-like bound magnetoplasmon transition continuously approaches the isolated D -singlet transition with increasing magnetic field, while the triplet-like transition loses strength, irrespective of the electron density. Exact diagonalization studies of a donor ion with a few electrons in a parabolic lateral confining potential show the importance of electron—electron interactions and localization due to the long-range fluctuating potential in explaining this behavior. High pressure studies in a specially designed diamond anvil cell exhibit a continuous evolution from bound magnetoplasmon transitions to isolated D -transitions to neutral donor transitions in a single sample as the pressure is increased and the electron density in the wells is decreased.